If you want to use Hemlock with an X11 server that uses magic cookies (eg, connections forwarded via ssh), and if you're using a CMUCL distribution from before summer 2002 (or so), you'll need to load the following patch: Make Old CMUCL CLX Work With Magic Cookies.

Portable hemlock. There is an attempt to free Hemlock from its CMUCL prison and port it to
ANSI CL plus CLX
called the Portable Hemlock. It has already been persuaded to run on OpenMCL and SBCL, and possibly others.

A recent version of hemlock is available through git (based on the portable hemlock codebase):